MIAMI – An internationally acclaimed Cuban novelist said in Miami that she believed that many women on the Communist-ruled island were writing in obscurity.

Wendy Guerra, whose works have been translated into more than a dozen languages, made her remarks in an interview with EFE in Miami, where she has traveled with her husband – jazz pianist Ernan Lopez-Nussa – for a Latin Jazz concert.

“I wonder how no other woman has written a character like Cleo, a girl who simply tries to write and is viewed by the Cuban authorities as someone who wants to do harm,” the author said of the main character of her novel “Domingo de Revolucion” (Revolution Sunday), which was published by Anagrama in 2016 and will have a second print run this year.

Guerra told EFE that silence in itself was a means of emancipation.

“There are marches. There’s slamming the door and leaving Cuba behind and there’s cooking, which also is a good means of freeing oneself,” said Guerra, who unlike many of her countrymen has opted to stay in her homeland even though she is essentially ostracized and never appears in the national media.

The 46-year-old author of the 2006 autobiographical novel “Todos se van” (Everybody Leaves) also reflected on how her life has changed since leaving behind her career as an actress in Cuban film and television and embarking on a new stage as a writer whose works are viewed as critical of government policy.

“They silence you and that’s it, without anything in writing. It’s the same with the (Havana) Book Fair, which they don’t invite me to,” Guerra said.

The writer also told EFE that she was very pleased that Colombian filmmaker Sergio Cabrera had made a movie version of “Todos se van,” which is available on Netflix in some countries.

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